Blinking in the wake of a hot beam on his face, Harry woke, wrapped in the blankets of his own four poster bed. Flipping the bed cloths away, he kicked his feet over the edge, turning so the sun shined on his back instead. Rested, he felt better, but the weight of yesterday’s events continued to squeeze his heart with an iron fist.

His stomach turned over and he stood, pulling clean clothes from his trunk. Throwing the cloak over himself, he made his way down the staircase to the common room where students and adults alike were scattered about the vicinity. Slipping past them, he pushed quietly through the portrait hole, removing the cloak as the portrait closed behind him.

He moved along the corridor in a reminiscent daze, ignoring the call of the Fat Lady as he aimed for the kitchens. Yet as he reached the foot of the Grand Staircase and heard the voices drifting from the Great Hall, he couldn’t bring himself to continue towards the kitchens. Diverting from his path, he crept towards the large wooden doors which were flung open to reveal the sunlight streaming through the broken windows and clear blue of the manipulated ceiling.

Taking a deep sigh, Harry slowly walked into the Great Hall. Many of the families had moved out to collect their personal effects from various parts of the castle, but the few who remained openly stared as he made his way along the line of the departed. A shock of red hair and a vibrant purple bob beside a head of normal mousy brown locks instantly stole his attention; it seemed that visiting these dear friends had been his intention all along. His gaze steadily moved over the others, seeing but not registering their faces or the limpness of their unmoving bodies. At least not until he recognized the body of Colin Creevey.

Some may have said he hated Colin, but Harry didn’t. Admittedly, he had been annoyed at first, what with Colin snapping millions of pictures every time their paths crossed. But it was a phase, and the rabid must-get-picture-of-Harry-Potter obsession soon died off, leaving only Colin’s infectious hyper-active questioning. Harry smiled sadly, as he examined the youthful face, the ever-present camera still lodged in his grasp, the flash broken off.

Furrowing his brows nervously, he gingerly took the device, popping open the latch and removing the film with a shaking hand. He couldn’t shake his curiosity; it was quite possible that Colin had managed to take pictures during the battle, and Harry found himself eager to see the event from someone else’s point of view. Sighing, he sorted through his mental catalogue, finding a few relevant spells, hoping that at least one would reveal the images properly.

On the fourth attempt, he found the colors of the grounds popping out at him, the flash of spells zipping across the miniscule frames, the skewed lines of the ground and sky portraying Colin’s fight to save his life and continue marking the event in photo history. Harry mourned such action, wondering if Colin had lost his life to take one of these photos.

Then Harry waved his wand to enlarge the images. Shocked, he saw himself walking into the Room of Requirement, all of the people gathered in the Great Hall whispering to each other, fear etched into their faces. There were many photos of that point in time, each face completely different in appearance, and yet repeating the same emotions as the last. The next few frames showed the grounds: the Death Eaters charging at the people running out of the Entrance Hall, Bellatrix Lestrange hurling a curse at an opponent past the frame’s border, Fenrir Greyback bearing his teeth as he dodged a Stunning Spell. Even more images showed the omnipresent chaos and uproar of the battle, even including broken sections of the castle.

Looking through them all Harry couldn’t believe Colin had managed to take so many. Fighting off one Death Eater at his age would be a feat, but to fight at least one while taking such deep, emotional photos was unprecedented.

Reaching the last three, Harry’s heart jumped into his throat. The Death Eater Macnair glared out of the frame, his wand arched above him, ready to attack. The next was Colin himself, his hair sticking up in odd places and grinning as he held up two wands. The last was the most lopsided of the bunch, more out of focus than many he’d ever seen, and yet Harry found that he could not look away. A few people crowded the focus, their distraught faces plastered over the main scene, but Harry could discern himself, wand raised, casting a shield charm between a sword-waving Neville and Voldemort. Colin, after some jostling, had captured the destruction of the final Horcrux. He gawked at the photo, technically the worst of the bunch, and yet the most empowering.

He jumped as a hand enveloped his shoulder. Turning, he saw Hermione regarding him curiously. Before she could speak, he thrust the reel of film into her other hand. Her eyes widened as she looked from the first image to Harry, down to Colin’s body before looking back at Harry. He nodded and turned away, continuing his march down the line, his heart heavy after seeing the Battle through Colin’s eyes. He knew, many years from now, he would look back at this day and fail to recollect certain aspects that his mind would weed out of his memory. However, he also knew that those photographs were burned into his mind, and there they would remain until the day he died.

A.N. thanks to the fantastic hallowsorhorcruxes for betaing! Please leave a review and tell me what you think!! :D